


Only the Dead

by RedRoci



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, will diverge from canon eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:57:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRoci/pseuds/RedRoci
Summary: Sometimes the best thing you can do is to walk away... And sometimes you don't get that option, which is the position Junior Deputy Alex O'Connor finds herself in now.





	1. Chapter 1

“That about covers the plan. Any thoughts?”

Alex focused over Whitehorse’s left shoulder at a framed newspaper clipping, trying to maintain a neutral expression and hoping he wouldn’t make eye contact. 

“What about you, Rookie? Looks like you’ve got something on your mind.” _ Remind me never to play poker with you _. Alex tensed slightly as Pratt, Hudson, and the Marshal all turned her way. 

“If I may speak freely, sir?”

Whitehorse nodded. “This ain’t the navy, kid, speak your mind.”

“This is nuts, sir.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow. Behind him, Marshal Burke sputtered “You gonna take that kind of --” 

“Pipe down, let her finish. Go on, Rook.”

Alex leaned forward slightly, both hands palm flat on the conference table. “You want to walk into a compound full of heavily armed religious fanatics and arrest their messiah in front of his entire congregation. With five officers.”

“You’re an officer of the law, you’ve got a gun,” the marshal interrupted indignantly. 

“Yes, I have _ one _ gun, and it’s got 14 rounds in it, and it won’t make me, or _ you _, any less dead if I get shot by 83 cultists with sawed-off shotguns and AK-47s.”

“You got a better idea, Rook, I’m all ears,” Whitehorse said. He sounded tired. 

“It involves a SWAT team and a couple snipers,” she shrugged, leaning back in her chair. 

“That’s a no, then. By the time we get the team in from Missoula and a full assault on the compound staged, Seed will have either skipped town or the cult’ll be even more dug in than they already are. It’s now or never, like it or not.”

_ I don’t like it, and neither do you. _ But there was no changing what was going to happen. As Burke hauled Whitehorse into his office, presumably to gripe some more, Hudson muttered across the conference table, “I don’t like it either. Too many ways for it to go bad. But at least we’re taking the chopper instead of trying to get one of the cars in and out of there.” _ Spoken like someone who’s never been in a helicopter that’s being shot at. _ To Alex’s left, Pratt pushed his chair out and stood. 

“Gotta go do the pre-flight on the chopper.” His body language read anxious, but his voice didn’t. No jokes, but he never made jokes about the helicopter. Good pilot. Decent cop, but she was glad to have drawn Hudson for partner all the same. She took the job, and the business of watching her partner’s back, seriously. Staci wasn’t a bad guy, but there didn’t seem to be much he took seriously, apart from the chopper. Maybe he made jokes to hide behind them, which was the theory Alex was starting to lean towards. But Joey had lost a partner, and blamed herself, and she wasn’t about to let it happen again. 

She was wasting time and she knew it. Sitting here trying not to think about the fool thing they were about to go do wasn’t going to stop them having to do it, might as well go gear up. 

* * *

“Hey, Rookie. Rookie!” Alex looked up from the video frozen on her phone screen. Youtube documentary on Hope County’s very own doomsday cult. “You’re wastin’ your time, Rook, there’s no signal out here.” 

“Crossing over the Henbane now,” Pratt chimed in over her headset. She looked out the window and met the cold concrete gaze of the giant statue of the cult’s leader. She shook her head. How they’d managed to get that built without someone objecting…_ How did they let it get this bad? Doesn’t the FBI usually keep an eye on this kind of thing? _

“We’re officially in peggie country.” The tension in Hudson’s tone suggested she’d rather be anywhere else. Pratt offered her a flask and she swatted his hand away. 

“How much longer?” Burke, on the other hand, just sounded bored. 

“Just long enough for you to change your mind, so we can turn this bird around.” 

“You want me to ignore a federal warrant?” They’d had this conversation twice already today. 

“Pratt, open a call to dispatch.”

“Ten-four.”

“Whitehorse to dispatch, over.”

“Go ahead, Earl.” 

“We’re approaching the compound, Nancy, over.” Alex knew as well as the sheriff did that Nancy would know exactly where on their flight path they were, she’d be following the GPS signal like a hawk. Pretty sure it just made him feel better to have something to do other than argue with the marshal. Pratt made a joke at her expense, something about Nancy being a better choice for the op, Hudson told him off, the sheriff and the marshal picked up the same back and forth they’d had going all day. Alex tuned it all out, focused on the lights below. 

“We’re here. Compound’s just below.” Pratt began the descent.

“This is a bad idea,” Hudson muttered, probably mainly to herself, but with the headsets on there was no missing it. 

“Last chance, Marshal.” 

Alex looked up, waiting on Burke to give the word. A long moment, a long sigh. Then: “We’re going in.” He caught her gaze briefly before looking back out the window at the cult compound they were descending into. 

“Set her down, Pratt.”

“Roger that.”

Alex re-checked the Beretta she was carrying as Whitehorse put Nancy on standby to call in the National Guard if things went sideways. _ Too bad we’ll all be dead before they get here _, she thought as she took her headset off and holstered her gun. 

“He’ll be in the church. Stick close.” Whitehorse glanced back at Alex. “Eyes open, these folks can spook easy.” She nodded and fell in behind Hudson. _ They knew we were coming. _ A wayward thought, unprovoked, but enough to put her on edge. And looking around, she knew it was the truth. They were expected. Not for the first time that night, Alex fervently wished for her squad of Marines and the full backing of the US government. One marshal and a rural sheriff’s department...What were they thinking. 

“Sheriff, I don’t like this.” 

“Everything’s fine, Hudson. Everything’s just fine.” But he was just as on edge as she was. They all knew this was a bad idea, only the marshal couldn’t seem to see it. 

“Jesus Christ, you’re wearing badges, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but they don’t respect badges much around here.”

“They’ll respect a 9 millimeter.” Alex glanced sidelong at the peggie to Burke’s left. Judging by the way he was holding that shotgun, she had a feeling Burke was going to be disappointed by just how much respect his Beretta bought him. 

“Not every problem can be solved with a bullet, Marshal.”

A chill down her spine, the cold sensation of adrenaline dumping into her system. The world slowed down around her, isolating details: the vicious barking of dogs behind a fence, a cultist flipping the safety of his rifle to off, an odd smell in the air that she couldn’t quite place. The muted, foreboding strains of Amazing Grace drifted out from the church as they approached. Whitehorse set Hudson on the door, reminded the marshal to try to keep his mouth shut, and pushed the doors open. 

Full house, lit with candles. It was warm, too warm for the dingy sweaters that seemed to be the uniform of the rank and file cultists, warm enough for the smell of too many people in too little space to border on oppressive. She could see their leader now, shirtless up on the stage, preaching a message that seemed directed more at the officers intruding on his service than at his followers. 

“Something is coming. You can feel it, can’t you? That we are creeping toward the edge...and there will be a reckoning. That is why we started the project. Because we know what happens next.” He seemed to be looking right at her, but that had to be part of the cult leader package, right? Make all your listeners feel like the only one in the room. The mood in the crowd was growing more hostile by the moment. 

“They will try to take from us, take our guns, take our freedom. Take our faith. We will not let them. We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore!” As they drew closer to the stage, the congregation closed in behind them, forming a wall between the police and the only exit. 

“Sheriff…” Burke finally sounded apprehensive, having realized that they were cut off from the only door by at least 30 heavily armed religious fanatics. 

“Do not pull that trigger. Remain calm…” _ So much for “let me do the talking.” _Alex loosened the gun in her holster as discreetly as she could manage, but didn’t draw. If this devolved into a firefight now, it’d be a bloodbath, and none of the officers would make it out alive. So it was going about as well as she’d expected it to. 

“No, fuck that.” the marshal’s nerves and impatience finally overwhelmed him. “Joseph Seed! I have a warrant for your arrest on suspicion of kidnapping with intent to harm. Now I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see ‘em.” 

Unperturbed, Seed gestured toward the three of them. “Here they are. The locusts in our garden. You see, they’ve come for me. They’ve come to take me away from you. They’ve come to destroy all that we have built!” The crowd pressed closer, forming a wall between the police and the preacher. Behind him, Alex noted two men, clearly his brothers, and a woman in a white dress hovering at the edge of the stage. The congregation was shouting in protest now, and Whitehorse was doing his best to keep everyone calm, to very little effect. But the preacher stepped off the stage and his flock immediately fell silent. Behind him, his brothers and the woman in white stepped closer, looming above him. 

“We knew this moment would come. We have prepared for it. Go. Go. God will not let them take me.” At his word, the cultists began to file out. Alex caught the cold, hard gaze of the redheaded brother: Jacob, she remembered. Ex-military, armed, dangerous. _ Primary threat _ . The other cultists continued their exit until only Joseph, his brothers, and the woman in white remained. Again, in the back of Alex’s mind: _ They knew we were coming. _

“I saw when the Lamb opened the first Seal, and I heard as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four Beasts saying come and see…”

“Step forward,” the marshal interrupted, but Seed kept talking, stepped toward the Marshal and jabbed a finger at his chest. “And I saw.” His gaze shifted to the sheriff. “ And behold, it was a white horse… and Hell followed with him.” His focus shifted to Alex, and he lifted both hands and held them out to her, unblinking. 

“Rookie...cuff this son of a bitch.” She glanced at the marshal, then back at Joseph. Burke was afraid. Joseph, by contrast, seemed to be exactly where he wanted to be. She reached out to grab his wrist. 

“God will not let you take me,” he assured her. She paused, hand about to close around his wrist, then, frowning, Alex cuffed him. He didn’t resist, only murmured “Sometimes, the best thing to do is to walk away.”

“Maybe so. Little late for that now, though.” As she moved behind him to walk him out of the church, she felt as much as saw one of the brothers shifting his weight on the stage behind her. _ Don’t look, don’t look, he’s trying to intimidate you don’t look. _

Whatever calm Joseph had instilled in the peggies dismissed from the church had dissipated, the crowd lining the path outside was practically frothing. _ We’re moving too slow. _ And it only got worse, the closer they got to the chopper. A rock hit the marshal and both his and Hudson’s guns came up. Alex rushed Seed into the chopper as Burke fired two shots into the air. 

The cultists rushed the helicopter as they were climbing on board, trying to drag their leader back out, clawing at the officers inside as Pratt tried to take off. Seed, inexplicably, started singing. A bearded, angry cultist latched onto Burke’s gun hand, trying to drag him out of the chopper (_ Amazing grace, how sweet the sound _ …). Burke pulled the trigger and the man fell ten feet to the ground below. A woman clambered up from the strut and grabbed at Alex, who pried her loose and pushed her off (... _ that saved a wretch like me _ …). Burke was fighting with another woman and Hudson was trying to stop someone yanking open the door on her side, and then Pratt yelled as a peggie leaped from the windshield directly into the rotor and the chopper went into a spin (... _ I once was lost, but now am found _…). While Pratt fought for control of the falling aircraft, Joseph went right on singing, even as they hit the ground. 

_ ...Was blind, but now, I see... _

* * *

Alex opened her eyes and shook her head, trying to make the world around her start making sense gain. This proved to be a mistake, as a wave of dizziness hit her. _ Did I hit my head? Maybe. What’s...I’m upside down? _ As the blur receded from her vision, she recognized that she was, in fact, upside down, hanging from the helicopter seat by her seatbelt. On her right, Hudson hung from her seatbelt, unconscious but breathing, and she could hear Pratt beginning to stir in the cockpit. To her increasing alarm, not only could she smell fuel leaking, but the handcuffed cult leader who had been strapped into the seat across from Hudson was conspicuously missing. “Hello? Is anyone there? Sheriff? Deputy Pratt? Deputy Hudson, if you’re there, please pick up.” _ Where’s that voice coming from _ ...someone’s headset, dangling in the air in front of her. Nancy, in dispatch. _ Shouldn’t she have called the National Guard by now? _ She stretched, trying to grab the headset hanging just at the edge of her reach as Nancy’s voice grew more and more panicked...and a hand clamped down on her wrist just as she managed to snag it. Joseph Seed. Mysteriously no longer handcuffed, and apparently more or less unharmed. And still singing. 

“I told you God would not let you take me.” He pressed his thumb into her wrist until she released the headset. She could hear Nancy, still panicking, close to tears. 

“Please. I need to know what’s going on.”

Joseph pushed Alex’s hand down (up?) to her waist and held it there, reaching behind him with his other hand for the headset, held the mic up to his face. “Dispatch?”

“Oh, my god.” An alarm went off in the back of Alex’s mind. Nancy’s tone had shifted: that wasn’t fear or panic, it was…. Reverence?

“Everything is just fine here. No need to call anyone.”

“Yes, Father. Praise be to you.” _ You’ve got to be kidding. _

Joseph leaned in, put his face right up to hers. “No one is coming to save you,” he whispered, then released her right hand and climbed out of the chopper and addressed a gathering crowd of his followers. “Everything is unfolding according to God’s plan. I am still here with you. The First Seal has been broken.” _ The hell does that mean? _ Joseph jumped up onto the hood of a truck. “I am still here with you. The Collapse has begun. And we will take what we need. And we will preserve what we have. And we will kill all those who stand in our way.” _ Oh boy. Time to get out of here _. The marshal was conscious now, and Hudson had come to and started to struggle with her seatbelt. “And these. The harbingers of doom will see the truth. Begin the Reaping!” he shouted that last to the sky, arms raised, face tilted toward the heavens. 

There was apparently a procedure for this capital-R Reaping, whatever it was, because the crowd of peggies immediately converged on the downed helicopter and began hauling the officers out. Hudson struggled, yelling obscenities and kicking. Alex grabbed her ankle in a futile attempt to stop them dragging her away. Pratt and Whitehorse were both shouting. Across from her, the marshal was fighting to get free of his seatbelt before they came for him. As the peggies approached the helicopter again, coming for her and the marshal, the right side of the aircraft burst into flames, knocking them back. Burke finally got his seatbelt to release. “Let them burn,” Joseph shouted, as the peggies appeared hesitant to reach into the burning helicopter. “This is God’s will. This is their punishment.” 

Burke dashed away from the helicopter, not even sparing a glance back. _ What a dick _. The buckle on her seatbelt finally gave way, and she dropped to the ground, rolling out of the door. 

“They’re gettin’ away!” someone yelled behind her, as the flames finally reached the fuel tank and the helicopter exploded. She put her head down and ran into the woods as they started shooting, counting on the burning helicopter to buy her a little time. Good cover, this terrain. She broke line of sight pretty quickly, between the trees and the hillsides and the fact that the people pursuing her had started out on the opposite side of an explosion. Once she figured she was far enough away from the peggies chasing her, she slowed down to try and take stock of her situation. Someone, presumably Joseph Seed, had taken her service weapon from her holster while she was unconscious. Fine. She still had the knife in her pocket (regulation) and the _ other _ knife in her boot ( _ not _ regulation), her radio, a flashlight, and a lighter. No cuffs, Joseph had been wearing those, so they were long gone. Seeing a light up ahead, she dropped into a crouch and crept forward. A cabin, with a small fire lit outside. There was one peggie standing guard, his back to her, talking into his radio. 

“Head for the lumber mill! We’re gonna find those sinners.” The radio clicked off, and as he was putting it back on his belt, she clapped one hand over his mouth and buried her boot knife in his throat with the other hand, backing him up into the brush she had been crouching in and lowering his body to the ground. The others would still find the body, it wasn’t much of a hiding place, but it would buy her a little more time, maybe. There wasn’t anything useful in the cabin. She picked up the pistol he’d left on the table by the fire, checked the magazine, and headed further into the woods. 

She could see the light from another fire away to her left, and gave it a wide berth. “Anyone hear me? Hello...it’s Burke...Hello?” The radio on her hip crackled loudly to life. Wincing, she turned it down, looking for the wire that connected it to her earpiece and mic. Must have come loose in the crash. “I think I lost ‘em… I see a… a trailer nearby. It’s next to a long bridge...I’m gonna try and get inside. If anyone’s still out there...listen, if anyone’s still alive…” The channel went dead. For one long moment, Alex considered getting off the island on her own. He’d abandoned her in the helicopter, and he’d just announced his location on an open channel...there’d be a firefight for sure...but she couldn’t just leave him. Even if he was an idiot. She could see the bridge he’d mentioned, off in the distance. No live peggies in evidence as she approached the trailer. Couple of dead ones, lying on the ground, shot. Burke wasn’t totally useless, then. She pushed open the door to the trailer, slowly, and did not shoot the marshal when he panic-rushed her from her left side. “Ahh, Jesus...Rook. I’m sorry. I thought they got ya.” _ When you left me, you mean? _ She pushed him away, and he backed off, trying to catch his breath. “Come on.” He waved her into the house. “Check the room, Rook.” She must not have been too far behind him, if he hadn’t had time to clear the building yet. It was in better shape than the cabin she’d cleared a few minutes before; someone had been living here. Whoever they were - cultists, definitely, there was a Seed family photo in a frame on the wall - they weren’t home now. Probably they’d been down at the church service.

Burke was still trying to calm down, without much success. “Oh Jesus. I had no idea.” He took the picture off the wall. “We are putting this whole fuckin’ family away. Fuckin’ lunatics.” He dropped the photo on the table.

Whoever lived in the trailer had left a rifle hanging on the rack and a shotgun leaned up against the wall by the window. Burke tossed her the rifle and picked up the shotgun. “We’re gonna get out of this, Rookie. First things first, we gotta arm ourselves.” Being in charge of something seemed to make him feel better, so she stayed quiet, waiting to hear his plan. “Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. There’s a truck out there. We’re gonna take it, we’re gonna head northeast. It’s probably only a few hours back to Missoula. And then we’re gonna come back here with the goddamn National Guard, and we’re gonna take out the rest of these-” Voices, outside the trailer. The peggies had caught up. Not too many, five or six. Alex was trying to get a good look at just how many and where when the marshal yelled and started firing out the window. Guns blazing, then. No way this could end badly. She shook her head and started firing, covering Burke as he made a run for the truck. Evidently the keys were in it, and after a few tries and some cursing Burke got the engine to turn over, yelling impatiently for her to get in, which, with a parting shot at the remaining cultists, she did. 

Burke, as it turned out, was a certified chatterbox when nervous, but he was a good driver, given the circumstances. He raged on about the cult, about Missoula, about Nancy as Alex leaned out the passenger side window to shoot at the pursuing cultists. Two more truckloads joined the chase as she hunkered down in the seat to reload, and Burke said “I saw a case of dynamite in the back, bet that’ll slow ‘em down,” at which Alex nearly dropped the magazine she was loading.

“_Dynamite _ , Burke?? _ We are being shot at and you’re just now mentioning the volatile explosive in the back of the truck? _”she leaned through what was left of the truck’s back window and opened the crate as gingerly as was possible in a moving vehicle. Sure enough, the crate contained ten or fifteen red sticks of dynamite and a small pool of nitroglycerin. “Joseph and Mary…” Ignoring Burke’s confusion, she climbed all the way through the window into the bed of the truck, crossed herself, and chucked the entire crate out behind them into the path of the nearest pursuer, and ducked. 

She couldn’t have said whether the dynamite detonated on impact with the ground or with the cultist’s truck, she was face down in the bed of their getaway vehicle hoping not to die. She heard the explosion, felt the rush of heat and the shockwave rattle the tailgate, and then a second crash and explosion: the other truck hadn’t managed to avoid hitting the first. No time to appreciate her handiwork though, or the fact that the unstable dynamite hadn’t exploded her and Burke the first time they hit a bump in the road: more peggies on 4x4s were catching up to them. She suddenly became aware of a low, loud hum in the air, and pinpointed the source at about the same moment it started shooting at her: a World War 2 era fighter plane had joined the chase. _ Where the HELL did that come from, _ she wondered, as she dove through the window back into the front seat of the truck. Burke was still yelling, cursing the cult and God and all of creation as he tried to outrun the plane. They’d made it to the bridge, and Alex could see a makeshift blockade ahead. The plane was right on top of them when she heard Burke yell something about a bomb and the world went momentarily white as the bridge disappeared from under them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex is pleasantly (more or less) surprised to find herself still alive.

Alex opened her eyes, blinking to clear the blur. Cold. Her clothes were damp...from the river, right. When the truck had gone off the bridge. _ Where am I? _Indoors, no windows...handcuffs? Zip ties. She was zip tied to a metal bed frame. There was a radio on, Joseph Seed’s voice spouting more nonsense about the end of the world, and a man listening to it with his back to her. He must have heard the bed frame rattle as she yanked on the plastic cuffs, because he cut the radio off and turned to look at her. 

“You know what that shit means? It means the roads have all been closed. It means the phone lines have been cut. It means there’s no signal getting in or out of this valley.” He sat down in the chair in front of her and leaned in. Older, in his sixties or seventies, bald, with a short beard that had gone gray all through. Gold ring in his left ear, tattoos all the way up his forearms. “But mostly, it means we’re all fucked.” Stubborn, bitter twist to his mouth as he looked away, shaking his head. 

“The goddamn ‘Collapse’... they all think the world’s coming to an end, now. They’ve been waiting for it, for years. Waiting for somebody to come along and fulfill their prophecy and kick off their goddamn Holy War.” It would be difficult to overstate the level of weariness that sets into Alex’s bones at the term “holy war.” The old man must have seen it in her body language, paused for a moment, then: “Well, you sure as shit kicked.” He leaned back, looked away from her again, heaved a sigh. “The smartest thing for me to do,” he said, leaning forward again, well into her space this time, “would be to just hand you over.” She didn’t argue, didn’t move, didn’t breathe, just waited; watched him wrestle with his own hesitation. He looked away again, then stood, pulling her boot knife from his pocket...

He cut the zip ties, then handed her knife back to her, along with her other knife and her radio, and pulled her to her feet. “Get out of that uniform -- we need to burn it. There’s some fresh clothes there. When you get changed, you come and see me. We’ll see if we can un-fuck this situation.” 

Alex watched the old man leave the room, then rifled through the clothes in the locker he’d pointed out. He must have had family staying here at some point, because she did manage to find some things in more or less her size, and they certainly weren’t his clothes. She kept her own boots, damp though they were, and pocketed an extra pair of dry socks for later. She also unpinned her badge from her uniform, stashing that in a pocket too, before discarding the clothes in a corner. _ What a headache. _ She couldn’t remember much of what had happened after the truck went off the bridge, apart from a suspicious image of the marshal, Burke, looking her in the eye before swimming away, leaving her in the submerged vehicle. That’d make twice in one night, surely he hadn’t done that. _ Surely. _

A quick survey of her surroundings suggested a bunker, which made sense. Lot of prepper types in the county. Patches and service ribbons framed in a shadowbox on the wall: Vietnam vet, Army. Good to know. Bottle of tylenol on the table by the bed; she took two and stuck the bottle in the drawer before going to find the old man. The room across the hall was fitted out like an infirmary, which she made a note to check out later. Living quarters, plenty of space, several beds. A letter from the Hope County Chronicle to a Mr. Roosevelt regarding a dispute over rainwater use, and now she knew whose bunker she was in. One Richard “Dutch” Roosevelt had served two nights in jail for contempt of court after making a scene in the courtroom. It had been four or five years ago, but Pratt had told her the story. Apparently the judge at the time had been the kind of person that everyone was happy to hear told off in public. 

She found Dutch in what seemed to be the control room or command center. Radio equipment, video feeds from outside, and occupying one entire wall: what could only be described as a conspiracy theory board. Map of the county, photos of the Seed family, short dossiers on each, sticky notes, red thread connecting pushpins, the whole nine yards. _ Guess it’s not paranoia if you’re right. Please don’t let this guy be a crazy person. _ Dutch looked up from the bank of monitors as she entered the room. 

“I didn’t properly introduce myself back there. Most folks call me Dutch… I been trying to piece together what’s happening up top… It ain’t good. Little I can gather is that your partners are alive… for now. Seems they’ve been split up: each one handed off to a different member of Joseph’s ‘family.’ You want ‘em back, I get it. I got friends that been taken too. Problem is, there ain’t no help comin’. Nobody knows what’s goin’ on here and they won’t know until it’s too late.” Alex opened her mouth to protest, then remembered what Dutch had said earlier about the roads being closed, the phone lines cut. Remembered Nancy in dispatch, deferring to Joseph. How many more like her?

“There’s gotta be people out there willing to fight back against this cult. We just...we need to show ‘em how...we need to build us a resistance. So the first thing we’re gonna do is get control of this island. Once we get some breathing room, we can figure out what’s coming next.” Seemed logical. “Be careful out there. It’s crawlin’ with Peggies. Those fuckers are willing to die for that psychopath that’s leadin’ ‘em.”

* * *

A pistol, a map, and a radio...from the quick look she’d had at Dutch’s living situation, she might have expected he’d be able to provide her with a little more gear for liberating the county from the cult’s influence. Doomsday prepper types like to stockpile guns, right? Maybe he’s saving them up for after the end of the world. She could hear voices up ahead, a woman and two men. She couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but two of the voices were alternating between threatening and lecturing in tone, and the third, one of the men, sounded defiant. She got down in the tall grass and crawled the rest of the way to the crest of the hill. Sure enough, two cultists and a civilian on his knees. The woman was preaching something about sin and the end of days, while the man appeared to be trying to beat a confession out of the civilian. Both cultists were armed, the man had a rifle slung across his back and the woman was gesturing with a pistol in her hand. Alex shot the woman first, then the man before he could swing his rifle around. The man on the ground shouted at the sound of the first shot, pitching forward onto his face in an effort to get out of the way, then yelled again (slightly muffled) when the cultist collapsed onto him. Alex pulled the body off him and cut his hands free. “You ok?”

“I...Yeah, I’m ok...Thank you so much, you saved my life! They’ve got Fred down at the docks, though, you gotta help him!” 

“Ok, ok. Slow down. Who’s Fred? And which way are the docks?”

“Fred Anderson, he’s a game warden, with the wildlife department. They caught us both over at the station up there, but they separated us. I think they’re gonna kill him…” The man was starting to get frantic again. 

“I’ll take care of it. You get someplace safe. You know where you are?”

“Yeah, I can get back to the ranger station from here.”

“The ranger station where the cult caught you?”

“Oh...yeah, ok, the lookout tower is a better idea, probably.” 

“Probably. Don’t worry about Fred, I’ll get him.” She handed him the woman cultist’s pistol, and picked up the man’s AK-47. “I’ll send him your way, ok? Now, point me toward the docks and get going.”

Only after he’d pointed out the direction she was supposed to be going and run off did she realize she’d failed to get his name. Oh well. 

* * *

It was just two cultists at the dock with Fred, but they looked like they were about to drown him. Too focused on what they were doing to notice her approach, and they didn’t seem to expect anyone left on the island to resist. Easy enough, add two to her body count. _ Ten for sure, plus another 6 or so from the dynamite _... She hauled Fred to his feet, forcing the thought down. Worry about it later.

“You came by just in time, ma’am. Thanks for savin’ my ass. Name’s Fred.” 

“Yeah, buddy of yours pointed me your way. Didn’t catch his name though.” She handed him one of the cultist’s rifles. “He headed up to the lookout tower if you want to catch up to him. Or, if you’re up to it, I’m gonna see if I can’t clear the rest of the Peggies of this island, and you’re welcome to join.”

“It would be my genuine pleasure. Didn’t catch your name?”

“Deputy O’Connor. Call me Alex. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

* * *

The hardest part was the ranger station. The cult had dug in there, seemed to be using it as their headquarters on the island. Handful of hostages, complicating things. But like the others, they weren’t expecting to be attacked at this point. Thought the whole area was securely under their thumb. Someone had given them some training, but it was clear that they were far from professionals. These people had been civilians last week. Between her and Fred, who, it turned out, had been in the army before becoming a game warden, the cultists didn’t stand a chance. Chalk up three more to the body count, and two taken alive. Saved all but one of the hostages. 

“What are you gonna do with ‘em?” Fred asked, gesturing to the pair of bound cultists. Alex paused, thinking. 

“Fred Anderson, by the authority vested in me by virtue of being the only law left in this county, you are hereby duly deputized. These folks are under arrest, and are to be treated as such.”

“Ma’am?” Fred looked alarmed. 

“I don’t know what all they get up to with prisoners, Anderson, but we ain’t them and we gotta be able to hold this up in court later. Treat ‘em like people, keep an eye on ‘em, and radio Dutch if you need anything.” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

As if on cue, Dutch’s voice in her ear: “Well damn, Dep. You got more fight in you than I thought. Might have a real chance at setting up this resistance. Next thing to do is get the radio signal cleared up. My CB’s on the fritz; I can’t get a hold of anybody off this island. The radio tower on the south shore must be busted, you think you can take care of that?”

“I can certainly take a look at it, but no promises. I’m a medic, not an engineer.”

* * *

“I mean it doesn’t look damaged…”

“You’re gonna have to climb the tower, Dep. Should be a matter of flipping a switch on the transformer up there.” _ Aw, hell. _

“Right. Sure. Climb the tower, flip the switch.”

“Try not to fall.”

“Thank you, Dutch, for that incisive input.” 

* * *

"Alright kid, I'm getting a clear signal now! why don't you head on back my way and we can take another look at the map, I'll walk you through what I'm hearin'. And uh, there's a broadcast comin' over the TV...you're gonna wanna see this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're still pretty closely following the game events, but I promise we're getting somewhere. yes, i know it's been 2 months; no, i won't get better about that, sorry.  
Also, eventually, i may decide how i want the formatting to look. maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex meets a very good dog, reaches Falls End, and wonders just what exactly homeowners insurance will cover.

Alex leaned against the doorframe of the control room. “What’s this broadcast, then?”

Dutch grimaced, and turned on one of his monitors to what appeared to be a slick, overproduced commercial featuring John Seed himself. 

“We are all sinners. Every one of us. You. Me. Even the Father knows...deeply of sin. It’s a poison that clouds our minds.” He advanced toward the camera, paternal smile plastered on his face. “What if I told you that you could be free from sin? What if I told you that everything you ever dreamed could come true? What if I told you that everything could be overcome if you embraced an idea: that freedom from sin can come from the power of just one word…” John raised his hands, and the camera panned up to show the word “yes” in lights above his head. The camera panned back down and then to John’s left. Alex started as the camera followed Deputy Hudson on to the stage. Hands tied in front of her, a piece of duct tape over her mouth. A black eye under tear-streaked mascara that looked too fresh to have been from the helicopter crash. “Yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I wish to be unburdened. Yes, I must be redeemed.” The camera pushed in close as Seed put his hands on Hudson, close enough that Alex could see her tense up. “If you’re watching this, know that you have been selected. You will be cleansed. You will confess your sins, and you will be offered atonement. Don’t worry. You don’t have to do anything. We’ll come for you. Welcome to Eden’s Gate.” The broadcast cut off, and Alex put one hand over her eyes and took a deep breath. 

“Well, fuck.”

“You’re partner’s in a world of shit, kid. You gotta get goin’.” 

“Got any suggestions on where to start?”

“I’d say Fall’s End first. Cult hit it pretty hard, bein’ the only real town in the county. I can’t raise Mary May on the radio, just a message transmitting on repeat, askin’ for help.” Dutch eyed her thoughtfully. “How much d’you know about John Seed?”

Alex closed her eyes again. “Met him a couple times around town. Stopped him getting his nose broken at the Spread Eagle once. Got invited to church, didn’t go. He seemed...insincere, somehow, but not malicious.”

* * *

To be fair, it was a decent house, and an absolute steal for the price. Ms. Drubman was a good realtor. Alex hadn’t anticipated buying a house so soon, but Adelaide had been convincing, and the owners were very motivated to sell. Still, it needed a little work, and since she didn’t know any contractors in the area, Alex found herself on the roof on a Saturday morning, trying her hand at fixing the leak around the stovepipe. The last thing this Texas girl needed was a leaky roof in a Montana winter. 

“Hey! You need a hand up there?”

Alex leaned out to see the speaker. He certainly wasn’t dressed to be working on a roof. Blue silk shirt, designer jeans, expensive shades perched on slicked back hair. “I appreciate the offer, but I was just finishing up. Be much obliged if you’d help me down with the toolbox, though,” she suggested. The man nodded, and reached up to take the toolbox from her, then held the ladder steady as she climbed down. 

“Thanks very much, Mr….?”

“John Seed,” he said with a smile. 

“Alex. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Seed,” she said, shaking the hand he offered. 

“Please, call me John. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I don’t believe I’ve seen you around before? It’s a small community and I’m quite certain I would have remembered you.” That 100 watt smile again. Really turning on the charm, this guy. Pretty eyes, though. Where had she heard that name before?

“You caught me,” she answered, flashing a grin of her own. “Just moved here about a week ago.”

“Oh? What brings you to Hope County? Family in the area?”

“Nope. Just always wanted to live somewhere it snowed.” She could see from his expression that he expected her to elaborate, but something about him... _ You’re being paranoid, _ she thought. _ Maybe people out here really are just that friendly. _ To this optimism, the cynic in her responded: _ He’s not from here _. “How about yourself? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I’d lay money against you being a Hope County native.” 

“No, you’re right about that,” he laughed. “I moved here with my older brother, he’s the preacher at a church in the area; the Project at Eden’s Gate?” 

_ Ah. _ That’s where she knew the name from. The sheriff’s department had a file on the Project. So did the Marshal Service. From what she’d read, calling it a “church” might have been a bit...polite. “Right, I think I’ve heard of it.”

“Are you religious, Alex?” Direct. His light, friendly tone had changed, had an undercurrent now that was almost hungry. Fierce, fiery, barely contained behind that smile of his. 

“I grew up Catholic.” He tilted his head to one side, his gaze sharpening. She was hedging, and he could tell. 

“You should stop by the service tomorrow,” he suggested, in that same tone. “We’d love to have you.”

* * *

“So, what’s your plan, Dep?”

“Head down to Fall’s End first, like you said. Got a sat phone at the house, maybe see if I can get a call out of the valley. Kick the cult out of the town, anyway, disrupt the supply lines.” She tucked a spare magazine into her jacket pocket. This, at least, was familiar territory. Outnumbered, outgunned, on the enemy’s turf? This she could work with. And if the satellite phone was where she’d left it and in working order, she wouldn’t have to do it on her own for very long. 

“You mind checkin’ in on Rae Rae on your way down? Got a message from her, sounded like something was wrong, and now I can’t get her on the radio.”

“Down at the pumpkin farm, right? I’ll check it out. Mind if I take some of the first aid supplies from your infirmary here?”

“You alright? Looked like you caught a bump on the head going off the bridge the other night, but I thought you were ok.”

“Yeah, not for me, I’m all good. Just in case, though, right? Seems a lot of the people we were getting missing person calls about the past couple of weeks were doctors and EMTs, though, so if anybody’s hurt in town or at the farm I don’t know if there’s gonna be anybody to call.”

“You’re right, sure. You uh...you know what you’re doing?”

“Was a corpsman, Dutch.”

The old soldier chuckled in surprise. “Navy, huh? Hell, Doc, you should have said. Take anything you need.”

* * *

Alex cut the engine to the quad bike about half a mile up the road from the pumpkin farm, hoping to hold on to the element of surprise over any cultists that might be lurking around. Not that they were much for lurking anymore, it seemed. They had been pushing Hope County residents around for a long time, from what she’d heard, but they’d done it pretty quietly up to now. But now they were openly armed and no longer bullying the residents through the legal system, and she was surprised at how efficiently things seemed to have fallen under their control. The mobilization of the cult’s forces was not a spur of the moment thing, in other words. They’d had a plan. “The Reaping,” Joseph had called it. Blitzkrieg was the word that came to mind. 

The sound of gunfire interrupted her thoughts. Ahead of her, in the direction of the farm. She picked up the pace, only slowing down and dropping into a crouch as she reached the top of the hill that overlooked the house. Peggies. No sign of Rae Rae or her family, but the cultists had -inexplicably- loaded that dog of theirs into a trailer. No telling how they’d managed it though, even from here she could tell the dog was angry. Didn’t bode well for the family. There were only three peggies that she could see. No scope on the AK-47 she’d lifted off a dead one back on Dutch’s island though, so she’d have to get in a little closer. She scanned the area again through her borrowed binoculars, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rae Rae or Ryan or Russell. And she did, but not the way she hoped. Past the big white pickup truck hooked up to the trailer Boomer was in, between the doghouse and the front door, two bodies. Alex frowned. Executing families outside their own homes was the kind of thing she expected from the Taliban, not civilians in rural Montana. 

She moved into the shadow of a tall pine tree on the edge of the pumpkin patch, sighting down the rifle barrel on one of the three men. Deep breath, inhale, exhale, squeeze the trigger. Again, in, out, pull. Six heartbeats, three breaths, three dead cultists. They hadn’t been paying enough attention to their surroundings, hadn’t had enough time to recognize the danger they were in, let alone react to it. _ Twenty-two. _

Alex broke the padlock on the little trailer, releasing Boomer, who dashed past her straight to the two bodies by the house. Executed, both of them. Rae Rae’s son had made it a couple hundred feet down the drive before being shot in the back. Over the radio in the truck, a voice called for a status update. Someone had heard the gunfire. “Come on buddy, we gotta go. They’ll send reinforcements.” The dog whined, but got up and trotted after her. “I know, I know. We’ll come back for them, promise.” Alex hadn’t been in town long enough to get to know Rae Rae and her family, really. She’d seen them around, talked to Ryan once when she’d been called out on a report of a cougar causing problems in the area. They’d seemed like good people. The knowledge that they wouldn’t be the last good people lost to this mess settled like cold iron in Alex’s chest. There wasn’t anything she could do for Rae Rae now, but she could still help the people alive down in the valley. 

* * *

Fall’s End was a war zone. Alex didn’t have time to dwell on how out of place it looked, bodies in the streets of this normally postcard-perfect little town, but she knew it would catch up to her later. From the water tower up on the ridge she could see the whole town. It looked like the peggies had taken it not too long ago, they hadn’t cleaned up and the blood hadn’t dried. The surviving defenders were on their knees outside their homes and businesses, watched over by around 20 cultists, some of whom had found the time to set mounted guns up on rooftops. She spotted at least one with a shoulder-fire RPG, which was annoying. _ Him first? _ They’d set fire to several of the houses, including hers, which was also annoying, since it drastically lowered the odds of her sat phone being usable. 

She spotted Pastor Jerome out in front of his church, and Mary May Fairgrave outside the bar. Much like the cultists back on Dutch’s island, these guys seemed to think they had the whole county on lockdown. They were paying attention to their prisoners, but not their surroundings. They weren’t expecting her, and she could use that. Decision time: take out the RPG from here and lose the element of surprise, or try and get the survivors loose to give her a hand? The peggie with the launcher moved out of her sightline, making her decision for her. There was only one cultist standing over Jerome. Start there, then. 

Best approach was over the churchyard wall and up behind the cultist, who was currently preoccupied with preaching at the preacher, and punctuating his sermon with his fists. She crept up behind him and put him in a chokehold, dropping to one knee for better leverage, and to pull him out of sight of any of his buddies. Jerome, hunched over in the road reciting a Hail Mary, flinched as she dropped the unconscious man next to him. 

“Deputy, I have to compliment you on your timing. Truly, you are a gift from the Lord himself.”

Alex checked the magazine in the gun the cultist had stuck in his belt, then offered it to the preacher. 

“Anytime, Padre. You know how to use this?”

“That I do.”

“Good. Stay low, I wanna keep this quiet as long as we can.”

Three more cultists choked out on the way to the Spread Eagle, one by Pastor Jerome, which Alex made a note to ask about later. _ They teach that at seminary? _ No time now. Two peggies covering Mary May, who was not praying. _ Creative vocabulary, that one. _ Alex pointed at Jerome, then at the peggie to Mary May’s right. He nodded, and she counted down on her fingers. _ Three, two, one. _Grab your cultist, haul him over the railing, hang on until he stops struggling. Mary May looked around in confusion at the sudden lack of cultists in her immediate vicinity, angry expression fading into relief at the sight of Jerome, and then into confusion again at Alex. 

“Deputy? I heard the cult got all of y’all…”

“Not all. You good?”

“Oh, yeah. Nothing serious, bumps and bruises. Just cut me loose and give me a gun, I’ll be ok.”

“Good deal. Now --” A yell from up the street cut her short. A cultist had found one of his unconscious buddies. “Well, I guess we’re going loud.” 

In a rare moment of good luck, the peggie with the rocket launcher appeared from around the corner of a building, on his way to investigate the shouting. Alex put two rounds in him, waving to Jerome and Mary May to split up. Boomer, somehow sensing that the time for sneaking had passed, took a flying leap in the direction of another cultist, grabbing him by the throat. After that, things got ugly. Alex killed two more peggies, grabbed a new magazine for the AK-47 off one, then froze for a moment at a familiar buzzing sound.

“They called in air support!” Jerome shouted, pointing west. Sure enough, another World War 2 antique, flying low and fast. Alex grabbed the rocket launcher. _ God I hope this works, _she thought, and pointed the rocket skyward. 

Scratch one cultist plane. The RPG caught him in the left wing, ripping it clean off. He went down in flames at the end of the street, taking the last of the peggies on the ground with him. 

* * *

It was dark out when Alex left the Spread Eagle. Mary May had graciously offered a spare bedroom for her to crash in, but before that she wanted to see if anything had survived the fire at her house. She wasn’t optimistic; the Peggies thus far seemed thorough in their destructive efforts elsewhere. Boomer trailed at her heels, unwilling to let her out of his sight. Alex couldn’t blame him...and she liked the company. 

She stopped at the edge of the pile of ash and rubble that had been her house and sighed. “You know, it was a pretty nice house,” she told Boomer, who cocked his head to one side, listening. “I’d never owned a house before. Just never seemed worth the trouble for a place I wasn’t gonna do much more than sleep in.” She nudged a blackened board with the toe of her boot; it crumbled under the contact. The cult seemed to have a pretty good handle on the whole arson thing, there wasn’t much left of the building. Not even enough that she had to worry about something collapsing on her head as she picked her way through the still warm wreckage. This was the kitchen...this particular melted lump of plastic was probably the satellite phone that she’d left on the counter. Well, so much for getting a call out for help. There had hardly been any furniture in the living room before, so not much lost there. And here was the bedroom. Probably. On her way to where she was pretty sure the closet had been, Alex tripped over something hard and metallic and bolted to the ground and nearly fell face first in the ashes. So _ this _ was where the closet had been, and here was the fire safe, looking intact as advertised. She’d have to leave a nice review, if she ever got back to someplace with internet. Inside the safe: her passport, military ID, dog tags, and a gun case containing, disassembled, a rifle, suppressor, and scope. She took the gun case and, after a moment’s hesitation, the dog tags, leaving the rest. It was probably safer in there than on her person anyway. “Always nice to have a gun you can rely on, huh buddy?” Boomer barked back, and Alex took it as an affirmative. “Peggies are cutting costs, I guess, buying AKs in bulk or something. Dunno why, they clearly have money. Or maybe they spent it all on that obnoxious sign on the hill.” 

As she headed back up the road toward the bar, her radio clicked on. “This is Grace, camping out at the Lamb of God church. Peggies keep fuckin with this place--” the transmission cut off. Alex turned and trotted back up the road toward the church, where Jerome had just stuck his head out of the door. 

“Did you catch that radio call, Deputy?”

“Sure did, Preacher. Lamb of God is west of here, right? Near one of the tunnels.”

“It is. Shall I let Grace know help is on the way?”

“Only if you can do it without letting everyone in the county who’s near a radio know about it. Gonna have to get communications secured soon, ideally by morning.” Pastor Jerome nodded. “I’ll head out there. If you need me, click twice then switch to channel six.” There was a Project truck parked at the end of the road, keys in the ignition. She patted the seat and Boomer jumped up to sit next to her.

“I can probably find someone to go with you--” Jerome began, but she cut him off.

“Y’all have had a long day already. Boomer and I can handle it. Quieter with just the two of us, anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not representative of my usual turn time between chapters, please don't get too excited.  
We are getting somewhere now, though, it's all kicking off in Hope County.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alex gets a crash course in aviation. No pun intended.

Lamb of God Church was on a hill above the road. Sniper on the roof. _ Must be Grace, good vantage point. _ Lot of peggies between the road and the churchyard, most of them dead or dying. Rather than try to approach and risk being mistaken for an enemy, Alex braced herself against a tree and started picking off the remaining live ones, causing some confusion as they realized they were being fired on from two sides now. _ Must be at...31 now. _She shook her head, suddenly weary. Lowered the rifle and headed across the road as Grace shouted “Hey! Up here!” 

“Grace Armstrong?”

“Yeah, come on up here, more of ‘em coming!” _ Of course there are. _There was a ladder against the side of the church; she could see Grace waving her up to the bell tower. “You’re that deputy the cult’s after, right?”

“O’Connor. What’re you doing up here?”

“I heard somebody was out there makin’ life miserable for the cult. You got good timing. See those graves down there? Couple of war heroes buried here. My Pops is one of ‘em. These peggies are tryin’ to defile ‘em. Tryin’ to erase our history, demoralize us, get us to get us to break so we’ll roll over. Not on my fuckin’ watch. Ain’t nobody gonna touch my Pop’s grave while I’m still breathin’. I’m a good shot, but I need someone to watch my back. They’ll be back any minute.”

Alex blinked, then pressed her knuckles to her left temple. “Grace...you tellin’ me you’re up here, on your own, defending _ dead men _ when there’s live civilians in the valley could use your help?”

Grace looked taken aback, then angry. “That’s my dad down there, Deputy O’Connor, I can’t just--” 

“I hate to sound callous, Grace, but I can’t spend blood or bullets on the dead.” 

“They _ killed _ him, Deputy, I won’t let ‘em defile him too. I won’t leave him behind”

“He ain’t in there. I am sorry about your father, but you’re not the only person to lose someone here, and you won’t be the last, but you could do something to stop it, and I ain’t gonna let you waste your life or mine on these bones when you could be saving the living. They’re not trying to demoralize _ us _ , Grace, they’re trying to demoralize _ you _. And you’re lettin’ ‘em. They’re here for you, and I’m not about to let you stick around here and play into ‘em. Move out, soldier.” 

Alex didn’t know what rank Grace had been when she left the Army, but she was banking on Grace still being able to take orders without asking inconvenient questions about things like chain of command. And sure enough: “Yes ma’am.” Whether out of instinct, or respect for the badge, Alex didn’t know. A hard edge to Grace’s tone suggested that the discussion was on hold, not over, but for the time being that was good enough. Time to not be here when the next wave of peggies showed up. 

They were taking the long way around back to Fall’s End, but it was the only way to avoid the roadblocks and angry cultists on the main roads. Grace looked like she was about to say something when Pastor Jerome called in over the radio.

“Deputy, you there?”

“Go ahead, preacher.”

“Just got a radio call from Nick Rye. Cult’s attacking his airstrip, he thinks they’re there for his plane. His wife is 9 months pregnant, Deputy, can you help them out? You’re the closest to the airstrip.”

“Yeah, we’re on our way.” Alex looked back at Grace, eyebrow raised. “Wanna go save some lives?”

Grace nodded slowly. “Right behind you.”

  
  


Rye & Sons Aviation wasn’t far, it wasn’t long before they could hear the sound of gunfire and people shouting. As they approached, a little yellow plane buzzed over their heads.

“Guess Nick was right about the cult wantin’ his plane,” Grace noted. 

“I had to go and get mixed up with the only cult in the country with its own air force, didn’t I. The hell is up with this county?” Alex shook her head, and pulled her binoculars out. “Not too many of ‘em… I make six… They’re all pretty focused on Nick in the hangar. I say we flank ‘em.” Between Grace and Alex, and Nick Rye blind firing a semi-auto over the edge of a shipping crate, six peggies stood about as much of a chance as tissue paper in a thunderstorm.

Nick was borderline frantic when they reached him. “They took my plane! Did you see that? We’re trapped! I swear to God I’m gonna kill that sonofabitch John Seed. We need that plane, I gotta get Kim outta here!”

“Mr. Rye, I’m gonna need you to--”

“You gotta get that plane back, Deputy. I’d do it myself, but Kim, she’s due any second now. They have to have taken it to John Seed’s ranch, it’s got the only other airstrip around here big enough to land the thing. It’s only a couple miles west of here, it ain’t far. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m desperate. You gotta help me, Dep.” 

Of course she’d help. Of course she would. Serve and protect, right? So Alex, running on caffeine and adrenaline, agreed to rescue Nick Rye’s plane, without putting a whole lot of thought into what that endeavor would actually entail. 

* * *

“You want me to _ sneak _ your _ airplane _ out of John Seed’s hangar. And presumably fly it back to you. Without getting dead? This is your plan?”

“Yeah, Dep, I thought we talked about this? I need you to get my plane back! It’s the only way me an’ Kim are gettin’ outta here!”

“I think I must have blacked out for that part of the plan. I have a concussion, you know. _ I don’t know how to fly a plane, Nick! _ I can - sort of - fly a helicopter. On a nice day. In an open field, really close to the ground.”

“It’s easy! I’ll walk you through it. Where are you right now?”

“Below the radio tower, looking at a whole lot of armed guards.”

“...Oh. I, uh. I can’t help you with that bit, Dep, gonna have to let me know when you’re lookin’ at the cockpit.”

“Right. Stand by.” Alex switched her radio back to the channel she’d been using to talk to Grace. First thing, figure out how to get into the hangar without tripping any alarms. No movement inside the hangar, at least not that she could see from this vantage. Then again, there weren’t many windows to see through, so there was really no way of telling how many guards might be in there. John himself could be in there, for all she knew. _This calls for a diversion._ “Hey Grace.”

“Go ahead.”

“In a minute I’m gonna need you to create a distraction on the east end of the main building. Something flashy. The propane tank, maybe? I don’t care how you do it, just try not to put yourself in the line of fire any more than you need. Let me know when you’re in position.”

“Copy that.” Grace moved back deeper into the woods and worked her way around the other end of the ranch, to where she could see the propane tank in question through her scope. 300 meters should be far enough back so they wouldn’t know where the shot came from. Easy money. “In position.”

“Excellent. On my mark.” If she was lucky, any peggies who might have been able to spot Alex on the route she intended to take from the treeline to the hangar door would be looking the wrong way. “Three, two, one, mark.” She aimed at the alarm box nearest the hangar. 

** _Bang_ **. 

_ Crack _. 

The concussion from the blast rattled the windows on the hanger, and shattered several at the other end of the ranch house. As Grace’s shot hit the propane tank, Alex put a bullet through the alarm box, using the sound of the explosion to cover. 

“What the hell was that?”

“Fire!”

Alex counted to five as the peggies started to panic. The explosion had started a grassfire, which added to the chaos. _ Here goes nothing. _ Keeping as low as she could, she dashed across the 20 yards between her position and the shadow of the hangar. So far, so good. The door was open, which was a blessing. She crept through, scanning for guards. Just the one left in here, up on the second story catwalk, and his back to her. She slipped up behind him and put him in a chokehold until he passed out. _ Sorry, buddy _. He’d be in trouble when he came to, but she’d be long gone by then. Hopefully. 

“Ok, Grace, clear out.”

“Copy.”

She opened the plane’s door so she could see into the cockpit and then switched radio channels again. “Nick, talk to me.”

“Alright, now it’s real simple. Two knobs to your right, the furthest one from ya is the fuel, the near one is the throttle. Push the fuel all the way in and then push the throttle in slowly. Pedals at your feet’s the rudder, use those to keep her in a straight line. It don’t take too much of a run up to get her off the ground, ya got plenty of room on that runway of his.”

“Sure, real simple. Right.” Alex bit her lip. Running out of time, though, the peggies would have that fire out sooner rather than later, and then they’d be looking for the reason it started. “But how do I get it off the ground. Once it’s going fast enough, I mean. Also do I need to know what all these dials are for?”

“Nah, don’t worry about that right now. When it gets goin’ fast enough, you’re gonna pull up on the yoke, real slow, and her nose’ll go up, and then you’ll be off the ground and on your way.”

_ This is an incredibly bad idea. _ No turning back now, though. She slammed the button on the wall that opened the hangar doors, then jumped into the cockpit. _ Fuel, throttle...ok, we’re moving...gotta turn right...rudder pedals...ok, ok, this is fine. Throttle in makes you go faster, pull up on the steering wheel. Yoke. Up. Ok, we’re flying and this is fine. _She’d been very nearly in the air before any of the peggies had noticed anything amiss, so she wasn’t being shot at. Yet. Small mercies. 

“Now I want you to dip that left wing, that’s the one that’s been worryin’ me--” 

“_ WHAT _.” 

“It’s nothin! Don’t worry about it. Just come about to your left, nice an’ smooth.”

Alex checked her altitude. Probably too low to bail out safely, even if she did have a parachute which...she did not. _ Best not to think about it _. “Nick, the next time you need somebody to rescue your plane? Ask someone else.”

“You’re doin’ great, Dep. Now just head on back this way. Lot of people say landing is the hardest part, but I'll walk you through it real easy. "

"Nick…." 

"Don't worry about it! Now, just get the runway in front of you and set her down nice and slow."

"I don't think that counts as walking me through it, Nick!" 

"It's easy, promise! You're a natural. Just bring your speed and your altitude both down, nice and easy.”

_ Sure. Easy. Fine. _Alex would have characterized the experience differently, but she didn’t die in a ball of fire, so she was willing to call it a good landing. 

“Any one you walk away from, right?” Nick chuckled, fist bumping her as she jumped out of the plane.

“...Right. Uh, sorry about the bullet holes.” Nick waved a hand dismissively, about to reply, when they heard the sound of engines coming up the drive. 

“NIIIICK?!” Kim yelled from the house.

“Those motherfuckers just won’t give up” Nick swung himself into the cockpit. “I’ll hit ‘em high, you hit ‘em low, right?”

“On it.” A firefight was preferable to getting back in that plane, by Alex’s reckoning. A shout from somewhere past the hangar: they were hitting the house. 

Tossing a grenade into a moving vehicle just about guarantees the vehicle stops moving. Or at least stops moving in the direction the driver wants to go. Four less cultists trying to shoot her. Another on the Rye’s front porch. “Get inside and drag that sinner out by her hair!” he yelled, before being unceremoniously dispatched with two rounds to the chest. The peggie at the top of the stairs was so preoccupied with trying to break down the bedroom door that he didn’t hear her coming up behind him. 

“Mrs. Rye, are you alright?” she asked, as she wiped the blood off her knife. 

Kim yelled something back, but it was drowned out by the sound of an explosion outside and Nick in her earpiece: “They’re at the hangar!”

“Stay inside!” she yelled to Kim, then took off at a run towards the hangar. 

The peggies were using the open hangar as cover to take shots at Nick, who was strafing cult trucks and ATVs as they drove up his runway. Really doing a number on his runway in the process, but there was nothing for it. She flinched and rolled behind the counter at the back of the hangar as a bullet hit the wall to her left. _ Sniper _. 

“They got snipers on the roof of the other hangar, Dep, stay down!”

“Yeah, I see ‘em.” Using laser sights, easy to avoid. Slow: much like the rest of the peggies she’d encountered so far, they probably had been just regular civilians a week ago. She kicked a box out from behind the counter. As the laser tracked the sudden movement, she got the peggie at the other end of it in her scope and shot him. Nick got the other one a fraction of a second later. She winced as he yelled “YEEEEEHAAAAW” into the radio. Looked like that was the last one. She walked back up to the house as Nick landed the plane. 

“Mrs. Rye? Don’t shoot, it’s Deputy O’Connor. They’re all gone, you can come out now…” Nick brushed past Alex and into the house, grabbing a pair of suitcases from the bottom of the stairs.

“C’mon, Kim, we’re leavin’.” he handed one of the suitcases to Alex. 

“No.” Kim took the suitcase Alex was holding and set it back on the floor, putting her hands on her hips. Alex looked down at her empty hands and contemplated being anywhere but the impending marital disagreement. _I could go out the window...maybe they won't notice._

“No?” Nick, already out the front door, turned back in confusion. 

“This is our home!”

“Kim, you jus’ don’t understand…”

“Don’t understand what? That they’re stealing our land and kidnapping our friends and doing god knows what else?” They both turned toward Alex, who, confronted with the possibility of having to take a side, froze. Nick turned back to his wife, pleading. 

“Kim…”

“Nick, your grandfather built this place. You really wanna turn your back on that? And what about all the times you talked about handing off the business to our daughter?”

“...Naw, I talked about handing off the business to our _ son _.”

“You’ve seen the ultrasound, it’s a girl,” Kim laughed, holding Nick’s hands. 

“N- no, that was on a, a messy black an’ white TV screen, you know them things ain’t reliable,” he protested, looking to Alex for support again. She shrugged. The only ultrasound she’d ever seen was her goddaughter’s, and she’d just taken Jack and Claire’s word on the smudge in the picture being a girl. 

“Nick…” By the sound of it, they’d had this conversation before. Nick was quiet a moment, gently touched Kim’s belly, pressed his forehead to hers. 

“I love you.”

“Me too.” Alex looked away, feeling like she was intruding on something intimate. 

“Well Deputy… looks like the Rye family’s diggin’ in.” Nick retrieved the rest of the luggage from where he’d set it down on the front porch. “Hey! Listen, you need any air support, you give me a holler. We’ll be like Butch and Sundance.”

Kim raised her eyebrows at him. “Nick...they both died at the end.”

“...naww.” Couldn’t tell if he didn’t believe that they’d died at the end of the film, or if he just didn’t think he and Alex would end up like that.

Kim turned to Alex, grabbed both her hands. “Please take care of him,” she said softly. 

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

* * *

After Nick and Alex had cleared the dead peggies out of the house and off the porch, Kim insisted Alex come in and wash up and rest a moment.

"When was the last time you slept, Deputy?" She offered Alex a cup of tea, which Alex accepted gratefully, wrapping her hands around the warm cup and humming softly. 

"Ah… well. Does being knocked unconscious after getting blown off a bridge count?" she waved off Kim's alarmed expression. "No, I know it doesn't count. It's been a few days, I reckon. Before we went out to try and arrest Joseph, probably. This have caffeine in it?" 

"No, it's chamomile. You can stay here, we have a spare bedroom. I know the place is kind of a mess, but -" 

"Don't worry about it, it's not your fault. I should help you clean up the blood upstairs, that's my bad." 

"No, no, no, you need to sleep! Cleaning up can wait, I’ll worry about it tomorrow." Kim hustled her upstairs, pushing an extra blanket and an over-sized t-shirt into her hands and escorting her into the spare room. “Give me the clothes you’re wearing, I’ll run ‘em through the wash.”

"Uh. Yeah, thank you. Okay, thanks… Goodnight…" 

* * *

Alex rolled out of bed to the sound of gunfire. It took her a moment crouched on the floor to remember where she was, and another to realize the sound had been in her head, not outside the house. Someone knocked at the door. “Deputy?” Kim Rye. “You awake?”

“Yeah.” Alex crossed the room and opened the door. “Morning. Uh. It is morning, right?” Her watch had cracked in the helicopter crash, then drowned in the river after. When was the last she’d known what time it was? 

“Yeah, it’s about 8. There’s a toothbrush in the hall bathroom for you. No hot water, but you’re welcome to the shower.”

“I really can’t thank you enough...I’d hug you, but I _ really _ do need that shower.”

Ten minutes later, feeling much more like a human being, Alex went downstairs to find Nick and Kim in the kitchen. “I appreciate the hospitality, y’all, but I gotta get going.” As if to demonstrate her point, the radio on the counter released a burst of static and then: “Can anybody hear me? If anyone’s listening, we’re out at Sunrise Farms...Peggies got us surrounded...We could sure--” the transmission cut mid-sentence. 

Alex shrugged, and grabbed her rifle from by the door. “No rest for the wicked, huh? I’ll take care of that. Nick, could you check in with Jerome, see if he can use you.”

“You want backup over at Sunrise?”

“Not from the air, no. I’ll call Grace, see if she’s available.”

“Stay safe, Deputy,” Kim said, offering her a biscuit and a worried smile. 

Alex saluted. “Yes ma’am,” and headed out the door, Boomer at her heels. 

* * *

_ Gotta get somebody on cleaning up all these bodies...Good as biological warfare, leavin’ corpses lyin’ out in the sun like this... _ She checked the dead peggie for ammo and was about to keep heading for Sunrise Farms when his radio clicked on. “It’s deputy huntin’ season!” _ Guess I’m making an impression. _ Nobody nearby that she could see, though. She unhooked the radio from the dead man’s belt and made a mental note to check with Jerome about who was monitoring the cult’s communications. “‘Deputy hunting season, huh? Probably means we should stay off the roads, yeah?” Boomer barked back. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” She made for the treeline and was nearly halfway there when she heard a truck coming up the road behind her. Bad timing. She dashed for the woods, hoping to get to cover before they saw her, but it was already too late. Ducked behind a tree and turned to face them. There were only four of them, anyway. She killed one, wounded another, heard one shout “Use the bliss bullets!” and filed that odd statement away to process later...and then felt a sharp pain in her thigh: a tranquilizer dart? She had just enough time to mentally connect the words “bliss bullets” to the dart in her leg as her vision blurred, stars appearing around the edges. The last thing she saw before everything faded was a bright blue butterfly drifting lazily across her field of view. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (did I definitely forget where Boomer was for a massive chunk of this chapter? perhaps.)


	5. Chapter 5

She was cold when she came to, and her brain was still too fuzzy to work out why it was so cold all of a sudden. Sparkles still around the edge of her vision, and she had just enough time to string together a thought:  _ I’ve been drugged? _ before hands on her shoulders pushed her under water. Getting dunked in a cold river has a wonderful sobering effect, so when the peggie pulled her up, she was at least clear headed enough to know to hold her breath next time. They pulled her from the water and set her on her feet, guiding her toward the shore. Someone was speaking, and it took her a moment to identify the source of the voice.

“We must wash away our past. We must expose our sins. We must atone… For only then may we stand in the light of God and walk through His gate unto Eden.” John Seed was standing in the water, preaching from a book in his left hand.  _ He’ll ruin his shoes _ , was the only coherent thought she could manage through the fuzz in her head, as the peggie at her shoulder guided her toward him. 

“Not this one,” he said, holding up a hand to stop them. He handed his book to another peggie. She didn’t know where he’d come from. “This one’s not clean.” She only had a moment to react before he grabbed her by the collar and pushed her under the water again. He held her there a long time, too long. She grabbed his wrists, but couldn’t find the strength to struggle. She did have the presence of mind for a defiant glare, however. He pulled her up. 

“Ahhh...Shhh,” he shook his head, and was about to shove her under again, when a new voice interrupted.

“Do you mock the cleansing, John?” She recognized the voice. Did she? Distant, still fuzzy. Up closer, she noted how John’s expression shifted. Anger to… Fear? No. Shame. Odd. He let go of her, turned back toward the shore and the source of the voice. A man, wreathed in the glow of headlights like a halo. 

“No, Joseph…”

“Shh. You have to love them, John. Do not let your sin prevent that.” A gentle rebuke, but John looked as if he’d been struck. Alex shivered. It really was cold. The man on the shore -- Joseph, the middle brother, the cult leader -- reached out. “Bring that one to me.” The world around her seemed to blur, and then she was standing directly in front of him. He put his hands on either side of her face, and even the soporific effect of whatever she’d been drugged with wasn’t enough to stop her going rigid. 

“Despite all that you have done, you are not beyond salvation. You are not here by accident or by chance. You are here by the grace of God. You’ve been given a gift. Now it remains to be seen whether you choose to embrace it… or to cast it aside.” He let go of her, and turned to his brother, who stood on her right side, his eyes to the ground. “This one shall reach the Atonement.” He reached out to John, gently rested his forehead against his brother’s. “Or the gates of Eden shall be shut to you, John.” 

“Yes, Joseph.” John turned back to her as his brother walked away, and she realized as she saw the hurt and fear in his eyes that Joseph’s parting words had been a threat. Quiet, gentle, but a threat all the same. “You will confess. Every sin you’ve ever committed, no matter how petty, no matter how small… I will pull from you. Then we’ll see if you’re worthy of Atonement.” He nodded to someone behind her, and she felt the twinge of a needle in the back of her neck as hands turned her away from him. 

* * *

  
  


In the back of one of those vans the cult used to transport prisoners...She couldn’t remember actually getting into the van. Two other prisoners, civilians, and a peggie guard. The fuzzy sensation in her head was beginning to clear, finally, though she was still seeing stars. The woman seated opposite her said something the guard didn’t approve of and he hit her in the face with the butt of his rifle...and then there was an explosion...the world started to spin and Alex wasn’t sure how much of it was real and how much was whatever drug she’d been given. The van was upside down. The woman who’d been sitting opposite her was dead, her neck bent at an unnatural angle, broken in the crash. The guard was alive, and reached for the rifle. Alex kicked him in the face and then flinched away as the back of his head exploded.  _ Did I…? _ She became aware of a voice behind her, quoting scripture. Pastor Jerome. He stashed his gun inside his Bible and reached down to cut her hands free. Her eyes stung; she reached up to touch her face and her hand came away bloody. Must have hit her head again. Jerome helped her to her feet and handed her her backpack and rifle. She didn’t even remember having them taken from her. 

“Lucky we got to you in time, Deputy. Grace called when you didn't turn up at Sunrise Farms, she was worried. Good thing, too, you were on your way up to John’s bunker.”

“Lucky me...What’d they dose me with, Preacher?”

“They call it Bliss. Can you see straight? There’s more folks up ahead still need our help. They got Merle Briggs, and a few others.”

“Straight enough to shoot, I reckon.” This was not strictly true, but she was getting there. She thought. 

“Come on, then, we have to get moving.” 

There was a gate up ahead, a checkpoint. She gestured to Jerome and the two other men he’d brought with him to wait, and rummaged through her backpack for a moment before finding what she was looking for.

“Deputy, not that I’m complaining, but… Where did you get a grenade?”

“Dutch,” she said, pulling the pin. She counted to three and then lobbed it through the window of the guard shack. There was a chorus of yells, then the explosion, then the shriek of twisting metal as the left side of the checkpoint collapsed, dumping the sniper on the walkway above into the rubble. A truck careened down the hill, but someone shot the driver and when it came to a rest after hitting the steel container supporting the other end of the checkpoint, the passenger wasn’t moving either. 

“How much farther ahead do you think Merle was?” she asked Jerome. It was dark, and she was dizzy and exhausted, but she wasn’t about to leave Merle (whoever he was) behind. 

“Not more than a mile. You good to keep going? I’m gonna call in some air support.”   
“The last thing I need is Nick Rye strafing the mountainside while I try to make an extraction, Preacher,” Alex warned. 

“I was thinking more on the lines of a chopper evac, Dep.”

“... Ok, that’ll work. Y’all stay back, distract them from here, won’t you? It’s better if I go ahead quiet.”

“Sure thing, Deputy. Be careful.”

“Oh, always, Preacher. Put in a good word for me with the man Upstairs, though.” She winked at him and shouldered her rifle, heading up and into the underbrush alongside the road. 

She didn’t want to take the bridge. Aside from the fact that it was a rickety looking old rope bridge that stretched a hundred feet across an eighty foot drop that didn’t even have the grace to have water at the bottom of it; it was too exposed. No cover for the whole hundred feet, and the peggies defending the other end had a mortar, of all things. She eyed the ravine with a vague sense of apprehension; she wasn’t seeing stars anymore, but the dizziness from the Bliss hadn’t quite abated. Nothing for it, though. At least for the climb back up she’d be too close for them to drop mortars on her. On the other hand… She scanned the other end of the bridge through her scope. There were only four of them over there. A man she assumed was Merle was knelt on the ground a few meters back from the mortar, with one cultist standing guard over him. She shot that one first, then one of the men loading the mortar, then the fourth man when he raised his gun to shoot the hostage, then the other man on the mortar. Then she took the bridge, rickety and exposed though it was. There’d be more of them behind her, she knew, and this was the fastest way to get to Merle. If she was very lucky, Jerome’s air support would be there before the peggie’s backup.

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, Dep,” Merle said as she cut the zip ties holding his hands behind his back. “Glad you made it, they was takin’ me to that damn bunker.” 

“That’s what I hear. Take this,” she handed him one of the dead cultist’s rifles, “Pastor Jerome is calling a chopper, they should be here any minute.”

“Not fast enough, look.” He pointed across the bridge. Here come the reinforcements. 

“You know how to fire that thing?” she asked, pointing at the mortar. 

“Sure thing, Dep.” 

Alex could hear the thud of helicopter rotors in the distance, they wouldn’t have to hold the bridge for long. Some of the cultists had enough sense to recognize how exposed the bridge was and were scrambling down the ravine to avoid the mortar. She tossed a grenade down after them. It occurred to her as she did that she was no longer certain how many people she’d killed in the past week, a fact she pushed away for the time being. Crippling guilt could come later, she was busy. The chopper landed, and she dragged Merle away from the mortar emplacement and yelled at the pilot to get moving before they were overrun. She wasn’t really in the mood to test his ability to fly while being shot at, and hoping none of the cultists below were about to pull a grenade launcher out of their back pocket was really probably pushing her luck. 

* * *

  
  


Merle Briggs caught a ride back to his place with one of the other resistance members, so Alex walked back to the Spread Eagle with Pastor Jerome. 

“What do we know about John’s bunker, Preacher?”

“He’s responsible for most of the supplies they’ve been stealing from us. Food, medicine, medical personal, that sort of thing. We reckon most of the cult’s families are housed there too. But tactically… I don’t have much intel for you.”

“No layout or anything, huh? Do we know anyone who’s seen the inside of it, might be willing to talk?”

“Unfortunately, no. None of their people will talk to us, and none of our people that have gone in have ever come out alive.” 

Alex grimaced. Not ideal conditions for planning a rescue operation. She needed information, and it looked like the only way to get it was going to be dragging it out of a captured cultist. She rubbed at the headache developing behind her left temple and tried not to think about it as Mary May came out from behind the bar.

“Where’s Deputy Hudson? I thought y’all were going to the bunker?”

Alex frowned at Jerome, who shook his head. “I said we needed to catch up to them before they got to the bunker, Mary May. If they’d got Deputy O’Connor down there too we’d have been done for.”

“So what, we’re just gonna leave her down there? With him? You know what he’s like!”

“Mary May--” 

“Don’t you ‘Mary May’ me, Jerome! He’s had her down there almost a week already. And what about the others? The folks that went missing before they locked down the county? How long are we gonna just--just--” Alex stepped between the two of them to try and defuse the situation. 

"Listen, Ms. Fairgrave, I get it, ok. Hudson's my partner, I don't want her stuck down there any more than you do. But I can't green light an assault on an underground bunker without more information. What do they have down there? How much security? Weapons, defenses, layout, where are they holding their prisoners, what are the odds they'll flood the place with that Bliss stuff as soon as they realize we're down there? Can we breach the door without collapsing the whole damn bunker? Will they kill her before we can get to her? This is--" Alex broke off, raked a hand through her hair. Took a deep breath. ''Look. Ain't my first rodeo, ok? Trust me when I tell you, we're not ready for this." 

"And if he kills her while you hesitate? What then?" 

"I can't even guarantee she's alive  _ now _ . What I can tell you is that if we try to take that bunker with no plan, none of us comes out alive." Mary May threw her hands up and turned away, and Alex was pretty sure it was so no one would see her cry. 

"She's right, Mary May. We need more intel, more people, more equipment. John won't kill her." He grimaced and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

"She's bait," Alex said, realizing where he was going. The preacher nodded. “Dammit. I’m sorry, Mary May, but we cannot go in there blind.”

“So what  _ are _ you going to do?” 

“Break their supply lines. Cut them off. Siege warfare. They’ve got food and medicine down there, so we won’t starve them out, but their people, their infrastructure, lines of communication--” Lines of communication. The signal jamming, up north in the Whitetails. She needed to deal with that.

“Dep?” Jerome was giving her an odd look, and she realized she’d broken off mid-sentence. 

“Sorry. Yeah, they’re the supply line to the rest of the cult, right? We need to cut them off from the rest of the county, disconnect them from Jacob and his weapons up north, from their Bliss supply across the river, from Joseph and whatever the hell he contributes to this whole mess. See if we can get someone to switch sides. Or at least convince someone to talk to us.”

Jerome nodded. “In the meantime… you need to get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”

“... Yeah.” 

Mary May was still clearly upset, but she nodded too. “Guest room is all made up still, Dep, you’re welcome to it.”

“Thank you, Mary May.”

* * *

  
  


Alex woke to the sound of light but insistent knocking at about 3am and only just managed not to growl at the door. “Deputy O’Connor.”

She rolled out of bed and yanked the door open. The headache hadn’t gone. “There had better be coffee to go with whatever you’re about to ask me to do, Preacher.” 

Jerome had the grace to look contrite, at least, as he pushed a mug into her hand. “It’s the Woodsons.” 

She frowned, drawing a blank on the name. “I don’t… Who’s that, again?” She took an experimental sip of the coffee. Too hot to chug, still. 

“They own the pig farm over toward the river. The cult’s taken the place… They’ve got kids, Dep. One of the few families in the county still that does."

_ Shit _ . Now Alex was properly awake. She turned away from Jerome, setting her coffee cup down on the dresser as she reached under the bed for her boots. “How many hostages?”

“Two adults, two children.”

“Any idea how many peggies are down there?”

“Six, maybe seven. They’ll kill the hostages if we get too close, Deputy, and I don’t think they’re above killing children.”

“Ok. Ok ok ok. I want, uhh… Can you get Grace? I’m gonna need a spotter. I gotta…” she trailed off, trying to remember if she knew the area around the pig farm. “Do you have a topographic map of the county? I’ve got a road map, it’s not enough, I need the terrain.”

“Yeah, I’ve got one in my truck. Meet me downstairs?”

“Sure thing, five minutes.” Alex picked the coffee back up and drained it. Jacket, backpack, radio, rifle. Took a moment to brush her teeth and put her hair up, then ran down the stairs to meet Jerome in the bar. 

“I called Grace,” he told her. “She’s on her way now. Here’s that map.” 

She spread it out on the table and Jerome pointed out the farm. It looked to be set into the side of a hill, so Grace should have a good vantage point, depending on the layout of the farm itself.  _ Maybe approach from both sides… I’d have to cross the road, no cover… Distraction? _ She looked up from the map. “You coming with? There’s only so much planning I can do without seeing the place, so unless you’ve got a satellite or a surveillance drone in your back pocket, I’ve gotta get going.”

“I’ll drive.”

Grace met them as they left the bar, nodded when Alex suggested she set up on the hill above the farm, and jumped into the back of Jerome’s truck without a word. They left the truck about a mile back from the farm so as not to let the cult hear them coming and hiked up the hill behind the farm to get the lay of the land. It wasn’t ideal. The hill, it seemed, was the only luck they were going to get with this one. Mr. and Mrs. Woodson were on their knees behind the house, with a cultist standing over each of them, watching as another cultist with a flamethrower torched their livelihood.  _ Wasteful _ . There was another out front, painting a warning about the consequences of sin onto the siding, and a fifth patrolling the fenceline. The kids were nowhere to be seen, but through her rifle scope Alex could see movement inside the house. 

“Ok. Grace, you stay here, cover the ones out back. Jerome, you’re with me. We’re gonna take care of the two out front,  _ quietly _ , and then get inside and find the kids. I don’t want any noise until we have them, can’t risk it. Grace, unless it goes sideways, on my mark you take out Flamethrower first, then the other two as fast as you can.”

“And if shit goes sideways?”

“Your call.” Grace nodded, and Alex gestured for Jerome to follow her. “I’ve got the guy on the fenceline. You take out the one with the paint, then see if you can get a look in the house. Quiet as you can.” Easy enough. Jerome stopped in the high grass just below the house and waited as she approached her target. For all he was meant to be keeping an eye out for danger, the peggie lookout was clearly not expecting an attack. Maybe because it was 4am and he was tired, maybe just because he was a farmer, not a soldier, and he’d never had to worry about someone materializing from the shadows and choking him out. Jerome rolled his unconscious cultist off the porch and into the tall grass, out of sight, before slipping up to one of the front windows to try and get a look at what was going on inside. He breathed a sigh of relief and waved Alex over. Inside, both children were huddled together on the floor, watched over by only one guard. Unfortunately, that guard was watching the front door. Alex made a face, then signalled that she was headed for the side door to the house. It was still dark enough out that if she was quiet and moved slowly, the cultists in the barnyard shouldn’t see her entering the house. She slipped silently through the door behind the cultist, glancing at the children and holding a finger to her lips before reaching up and putting her arm around the man’s throat and dropping to one knee as he flailed, rifle dangling by his side, forgotten in his panic. The kids, bless them, did not scream. Jerome crept in the front door as Alex lowered the cultist to the floor and set about clearing the rest of the house. Alex crouched by the two kids.

“Are you hurt?” she whispered. Both shook their heads no, and she nodded. “Good.” She looked around the room, then gestured them over behind the couch. “Stay here, ok? I’ll be right back.” She paused at the panicked looks they gave her, and waved Jerome over. “Stay with them. I gotta go get your parents, ok? I promise, I will be right back.” She went out the side door again and after a moment’s consideration, climbed up onto the roof of the garage and lined up one of the peggies standing guard over the parents in her scope. Into her radio: “Now, Grace.” Almost immediately there was the crack of a gunshot and the guy with the flamethrower dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Alex shot one of the guards, and Grace picked off the other, and then there was silence. No more peggies appeared out of the woods or from the road, so they hadn’t missed anyone. 

Mr. Woodson had a broken arm, at least one cracked rib, and by Alex’s guess a fracture to his left orbital bone, but he would live and probably even keep the eye. His wife was in slightly better shape, though also clearly beaten. 

“The kids--” 

“They’re ok, ma’am, they’re inside. They’re not hurt, come on, I’ll take you to them.” 

Mrs. Woodson held her children and cried while Alex set Mr. Woodson’s arm, and Jerome quietly explained that it wouldn’t be a good idea for them to stay at the farm anymore, and that Kim Rye had offered space in her home if they wanted, or they could stay at the church in town. Relieved as she was that they’d saved all 4 of them, Alex couldn’t shake the sick feeling at what the cult had apparently been prepared to do.  _ Children. How can so many people be willing to be involved in that? _ Even back at the Spread Eagle, after dropping the family off at the Rye’s house, the thought kept her awake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been 84 years....  
sorry


	6. Chapter 6

Kim Rye had passed a tip to Alex the night before about the red silos all over the valley: specifically that the cult was using them to store explosives. Or possibly Bliss. Explosive Bliss? Either way, Kim’s advice had been to blow the damn things up, which in any other circumstance would be an alarming suggestion, but when a heavily armed cult takes over an entire county you do what you gotta do. So she was in the middle of fixing a demolition charge to the side of the one near Larry Parker’s place when Dutch’s voice crackled over her radio. 

“Hey Dep, got a minute?”

“Let me guess, you need my help?”

“How’d you know?” _ Nobody just calls me to say hi. _ She wasn’t about to say that out loud. She knew she was just tired. Everyone was tired. Not enough time to stop and take a break, not with the cult breathing down their necks. 

“It’s becoming a theme. What can I do for you?”

“You know the lumber mill, northeast of here? Cult’s been using it as a prison camp, locking up Whitetails. Got some of them blissed up wolves, too, from the noise. My niece went up there to try and take some of ‘em out, and I ain’t heard from her in a couple days. I’m all the family she’s got left, Deputy.” 

“I’ll see what I can do, Dutch. Think I’m wearing out my welcome with John, anyway, probably about time I got outta Holland Valley for a bit. And I still gotta find out where comms are being jammed from.”

“You still banking on getting help from the outside, Dep?”

“_ Whole counties _ don’t just go dark and no one notices, Dutch. That doesn’t happen. Joseph Seed was supposed to be in federal custody in Missoula a week ago, surely _ someone _ has noticed that Burke hasn’t checked in.” 

“What about you, kid? You got family outside?”

“Yeah, I do.” 

* * *

Her phone was ringing. Not the cell in her pocket, the satellite phone on the counter. “Hello?”

“Hey, Doc, it’s me.” Torres, right on time, as always. 

“Will, hey. Good to hear from you. Just checking in?”

“Yeah, just talked to Ahmadi. He says hey. How’s things? Getting cold up there yet?”

“Just nights, so far. Gonna have to stock up on like...wool socks and that kind of thing, I guess? Can’t say I’m looking forward to winter, to be honest.”  
“Still can’t be worse than the desert, though.”

“Definitely much less sand. And, bonus, fewer people shooting at me. What about you? Y’all doing ok?”

“Yeah, so far. Mom’s still not happy about the whole thing, but she does like being closer to Dad. Oh, before I forget, she also says hi. And Abuelita wants to know if she can send you some tamales? I told her I don’t know if that’s a good idea. She wanted me to check if you’re eating right.”

“She can relax, I do know how to feed myself. But if she wants to send tamales...If I ever turn down Abuelita’s tamales, it’s either a cry for help or I’ve been replaced by a robot.”

Will laughed. “Ok, I’ll tell her. You sure it’s a good idea though, sending stuff? I mean, with the whole thing…”

“I mean, I don’t think a package of tamales is going to blow my cover or whatever. But if it makes you feel better, send it to the county sheriff’s office instead of the house. Send enough to share, though.”

“As if mi Abuelita was going to send you an amount that you could conceivably eat all on your own.”

“Okay, fair. Hey, I go on shift in a few minutes, so I gotta let you go and give Ben a call. Talk to you next week?”

“Sounds good. Tell Markham he still owes me thirty bucks. Adios.”

“Yeah, will do, bye.”

* * *

If her phone had been working, she should have got a call from Torres two days ago. Should have called Markham. The missed check-in would have been an immediate red flag, by now they’d know for sure something was wrong. Even if she couldn’t get a call out, _ someone _ was coming. They had to be. _ They have to be. _

“I’ll head up there today, Dutch. Call you when it’s done.”

“‘Preciate it, Dep.”

She’d been out to the lumber mill a couple of times. It had a reputation as a dangerous workplace, and while no one had ever been able to prove any allegations about the management; the sheriff's department had been called out more than once in her time in Hope County to look into suspicious incidents. Set into the foothills of the Whitetail Mountains, getting the high ground would be slightly more difficult there than it was at the Woodson’s farm, especially if the cult had the sense to post sentries above the mill. Nick had offered air support wherever she needed it, but that wouldn’t be much use to her in this situation: strafing the mill from the air would harm as many hostages as it did cultists. In the end Alex decided to do the recon on her own, and then make a decision about how best to approach the mill and who to do it with. 

Or at least, that had been the plan, anyway. She had climbed onto the roof of the gas station across the road from the mill to get the look of things, and while it was a good vantage, she wasn't the first to use it as such. She reached out to check the man's pulse without entertaining any real hope of finding one; there was a lot of blood. No pulse, but he hadn't gone cold yet either. Just a little too late. Not the first time since this started that she'd been just a little too late, but this time… His name was Neil Pierson. He was a volunteer firefighter who had responded to some incidents out at the Boshaw place with her. She knew him. Not well, but better than most of the casualties so far. He died with his rifle in his hands, surrounded by shell casings, and there was a note beside him, pinned to the gas station roof with a ka-bar. _ If no one is going to stand up to them, then it’s up to me. If I’m going to hell I’m taking as many of them as I can with me. They fucked with the wrong Marine. _She looked around the rooftop again, then out to the parking lot and the road beyond. There were a lot of shell casings, and also, now she was looking, a fair few bloodstains on the asphalt, and bodies left to the vultures. Peggies didn’t have a lot of respect for their own dead. She couldn’t bury him, not before clearing out the mill. She pocketed his dog tags, pulled a canvas drop cloth over his body, and picked up her own rifle. “I have the watch.”

Was it reckless, poorly planned out, and incredibly stupid? Yes. But Alex didn’t really think about any of that until she was on the ridge above the mill, alone, aiming at one of the peggies posted on the roof. She could hear Taylor’s voice in her mind, telling her to get her head on straight, and rolled her eyes as she turned her radio on. “Jerome.”

“Go ahead, Deputy.”

“If you have anyone available, I may need backup out at the lumber mill.”

“Sure thing, Grace is available, and Mark Kaplan if you can wait a few hours.”

Well… It was already well past midnight, and she liked her odds in the dark better. “Send Kaplan to the gas station across the road. Burial detail.”

“... Sure thing, Dep.”

“Neil Pierson. He’s on the roof. Don’t forget about him.”

“We won’t, Alex.”

“Good. Tell Grace if she doesn’t hustle she’ll miss all the fun.” She turned the radio off before the preacher could answer, and returned her focus to the peggie in her crosshairs. He was alone up there, and at this distance the others wouldn’t notice the sound of the gunshot. Easy money. She put a round through his head, and another through the control box for the alarm for good measure. 

She’d been lucky, and she knew it. There’d been under ten men holding the mill, along with a handful of horrible wolves… “judges,” one of the hostages had called them, some sort of experiment of Jacob’s, drugging wolves with that Bliss stuff. She was avoiding Grace’s justifiably judgemental gaze, and turned her attention to a very young woman with a scar running from the corner of her eye to her jawline; Dutch’s niece, from the description he’d given. 

"Thanks for busting me out. Name's Jess. I'm guessing you know my uncle Dutch. Listen, I ain't got a lotta time. Was on the trail of one of Jacob's zealots, fella goes by the name of 'the Cook.' Don't sound so scary, right? Trust me, he's one fucked up son of a bitch." 

Alex winced. The list of reasons a guy might go by that name was pretty damn short, and she didn't like any of the options on it. "I need your help," Jess continued. "Can't let this trail go cold. And if you're looking to hook up with the Whitetails-" 

Alex waved a hand, cutting her off. "You don't have to convince me. Lead the way." 

Jess looked momentarily taken aback, then nodded. "Good. Let's go put this fucker in the ground, then. This way." 

They weren't a hundred yards from the mill when she smelled it: the sickly sweet odor of charred flesh that threatened to catapult her back to another time and place, a village in a desert that she didn't want to think about. Couldn't think about. Jess gestured at the source of the smell, an open mass grave, still smoldering. "The Cook's calling card. Innocent people, burned alive." She started outlining Jacob Seed's personal philosophy and how the Cook fit into it, but Alex was focused on her own breathing. _ In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. _ "...Nobody believed it was happening, because nobody wanted to believe." 

Alex couldn't tell exactly how Jess was tracking this guy. There wasn't a trail of mass graves leading up the mountain, and though they did have to pause every once in a while to clear out some peggies, it wasn't as if there weren't plenty of those around. Most of those cultists they could have probably gone around rather than through, but Jess apparently wasn't the type. She was starting to wonder where Jess was headed when she smelled smoke again. Just smoke this time, mercifully. 

"Up here," Jess whispered. "Stay down." They crept to the top of the rise, overlooking an old quarry. More cultists, and civilian hostages, and a bonfire in progress, but no sign of this "Cook." 

"Shit, he ain't here. But those hostages, they'll kill ‘em if they spot us. Gotta do this quiet." there were only four of them. 

"You get the two on the ridge, I've got the others," Alex said quietly. Jess looked down into the quarry skeptically. 

"You sure?" It wasn't an easy shot, and the hostages were a risk, but it was what had to be done. Alex checked the magazine in her rifle and nodded. 

"On my count." Breathe in, breathe out, pull the trigger, repeat. Even suppressed, her rifle was much louder than Jess’s bow, but none of the peggies in the quarry lived long enough for it to matter. The hostages all made it, and that’s what mattered. After they’d sent the civilians back down toward the mill, armed with the cultists’ guns, Jess set off again, further up the mountain. There was smoke on the horizon. 

“You wanna know why they call him the Cook?” Alex was absolutely certain she did not want to know, but she didn’t interrupt. “Couple years back, Jacob sent one of his guys out to round up this family...parents and kids. First thing he did was starve ‘em. Gave ‘em nothin’.” _ Couple of years _ , she’d said. Just how much had the cult got away with? Just how much had the sheriff’s department ignored over the ten or twelve years Eden’s Gate had been in Hope County? She was going to have to have a word with Sheriff Whitehorse, if she ever found him alive. Jess was still talking, and to Alex’s mounting horror she realized it wasn’t just a story, but an eyewitness account. “...So the Cook, he had the parents on posts, and decided to give the kids a little water. Then he asked if they were hungry. Kids were starvin’, so they said yes. Started beggin’ for food. Cook asked if they wanted pork. Kids said yes. So he went out to the parents, and took their shoes off. Started to play ‘this little piggy went to market.’ The blood poured like a damn faucet. Cook had a big ol’ grin on his face as he offered each little piece to the kids… Pretty soon there were no more piggies left… so he laughed, and set the parents on fire… and the air filled with that sick, sweet smell of roasting meat… I’ll _ never _forget that smell. When they finally stopped screamin’, I looked around and he was just gone… Vanished like some sorta demon in the night. Anyways, that’s why they call him the Cook.” As Jess trailed off, Alex could hear screams from just over the next rise, and there wasn’t time to absorb the story she’d just heard. 

She knelt just below the crest of the ridge, surveying the scene below through her scope.

“Shit, there he is… He’s burnin’ ‘em, we gotta--”

Alex shot the Cook in the back of the head, cutting off Jess’s slightly panicked words and scattering the other cultists. 

They saved exactly one hostage, but Alex wasn’t optimistic about his chances. Third degree burns over a significant portion of his body, bad enough when you had access to an actual trauma center, but out here? Grace was calling Pastor Jerome on the radio, trying to coordinate some sort of medevac. She did what she could for him, while Jess wandered over to the Cook’s body, facedown in the dirt. 

“Better death than he deserved,” she murmured. “Dutch was right… Cook's dead and I don't feel… Anything. All I ever wanted was to kill this guy and now… I don't… I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Dutch has been right about a lot of shit lately. The cult… Eli… maybe he's right about you too. You uh.. Ever need someone to watch your back, you call me. And… Thanks. For everything."

“Sure thing, kid.” She hesitated a moment, then lowered her voice: “Jess… the smell, the screams… they never really go away, but it helps to talk to someone. I know, I _ know _ that sounds cliche, and I know you don’t think anybody who wasn’t there will get it. Just… think about it, ok?” She didn’t know what else to say, it was a lot, this whole thing, and if she had to guess she’d say relating the story on the way up the mountain had been the first time Jess had told anyone about it. Jess turned back to look down at her, and her haunted gaze must have found a mirror in Alex’s eyes because her expression shifted by a fraction and she looked _ so young _… but only for a moment. The wall went back up, but she nodded before turning away and heading back down the mountain. 

“You won’t fix that in a day,” said Grace, from behind her. 

“Ain’t trying to fix it. Just...soften the edges, maybe.” _ Some things don’t get fixed. Some things stick with you, for the rest of your days, and you have to choose how to be haunted: if you’re going to let it shred your soul to bloody tatters; or if you’re going to grow around it, scar tissue or a pearl, beautiful or just a little less painful _. She looked up at Grace, who was staring, and realized she’d said all that out loud. “I, uhh… saw a therapist, for a while. Was good for me, you know? Anyway. We’ve got stuff to do, yeah?”


End file.
